Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
The recent deaths of actor Donald Sutherland and screenwriter-director Robert Towne got me thinking about their 1998 film Without Limits, a track-and-field movie about Steve Prefontaine. Something about this movie never got on beam; the true story hems it in, the title's terrible, and it was somewhat overlooked at the time because it came out after another Pre biopic. Here's my review of the film, which is no great shakes as a piece of writing, but I'd like to at least mention this interesting movie. In the review, I name-check Towne's directing debut, Personal Best, another track-and-field picture, which I happen to love. Sutherland is excellent in Without Limits; he plays Bill Bowerman, famed Oregon track coach and co-founder of Nike.
The legacy of Steve Prefontaine, the distance runner who died too young, continues to throw a shadow. Last year, a quickie movie biography, Prefontaine, came and went, an uninspiring picture with Jared Leto in the lead role. Without Limits is a bigger-budgeted, much more ambitious undertaking. It covers exactly the same ground as the previous movie (sometimes right down to the same scene), but does so with intelligence and style.
Steve Prefontaine, or “Pre,” as he was called by fans, came out of Coos Bay, Oregon. A hotshot high school distance runner, he was recruited by one of the country’s top track coaches, Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland), to compete at the University of Oregon.
Pre, played by Billy Crudup, is depicted as a rebel. On a college campus in 1970, that wasn’t so unusual, but Pre made waves in the traditional world of track and field.
The customary scenes of training, as well as Pre’s conventional romance with a co-ed (Monica Potter), take up the first part of the film. The centerpiece is Pre’s performance in the 1,500 meter race at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the games that were rocked by the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists.
Prefontaine’s own outing in those games rocked his world, too. His philosophy of running, that he wins races because he tries harder than other runners, is tested. In fact, this is the most interesting theme in the film, and it makes the title a misnomer. What Prefontaine must learn is that willpower isn’t enough, that maybe there are some limits.
This movie doesn’t really lick the usual handicaps of the biographical saga, in which the story is always bound by nagging facts. Visually, it’s a pleasure, with the photography of the great Conrad Hall enhancing the location shooting in Eugene, Oregon.
Director Robert Towne, who made a previous film on track and field called Personal Best, keeps the material smart. He slowly brings along the sidebar plot about Bowerman’s tinkering with the invention of waffle-soled running shoes, a hobby that led to the formation of a little company called Nike.
Towne co-wrote the script with Kenny Moore, a former marathon runner and sportswriter who knew Steve Prefontaine (Moore is played in the film by Billy Burke). One of the producers is Tom Cruise, who apparently has an interest in track himself.
The up-and-coming actor Billy Crudup (who physically resembles Cruise) catches the intensity in Pre, and some of the vanity, too. You get the idea that the blond, mustachioed Prefontaine was well aware of his effect on women as well as the home-town fans. His scenes with Sutherland have a nice, familial texture to them.
I don’t know how profound or original any of this is, but I still liked Without Limits. There’s something to be said for a certain kind of movie that has a goal and achieves it, without trying to change the face of the cinema. Without Limits is one of those movies, and on its own familiar terms, it’s very easy to appreciate.
July 19, 2024
